California Sweets! Helms Bakery & Knott's Boysenberry Festival & Altadena update

Welcome to Pat Patterson's Best of California. This episode, Altadena. We're going to be talking to some of the small businesses that are coming back after the tragic fire there. We're also going to visit with my neighbor Norm Haley and his restoration of a vintage Helms bakery truck. And then speaking of sweets, we're going to go eat. Where are we going to go eat? We're going to go to Knottberry Farm and we're going to check out the Boenberry Festival with some of their amazing Boenberry themed food. Oh, I'm hungry already. Let's get going. I'm Pat Patterson and I love California. [Music] I'm here with Robert Lions from the Pasadena Rotary. We are here to discuss a little bit about the best of Altadena. Go to www.bestofcal. bestofcal.tv to buy a shirt or from Freddy's Antiques or from June Bug Tattoo or from Cindy's which was also Fox's. So, Robert, tell me a little bit why this project spoke to you. Why this project spoke to me? Well, it's it's a brilliant idea. We underwrite the shirts. We give them out. They sell them. They have to go get that money themselves. I think it's great. It's incentivizing them building back their businesses in Aladena. It's awesome. I know. And I mean, I just have such a fondness for Aladena. And um while we're here on camera, I just really wanted to express how appreciative I am that you trusted us with this project because um I I just want to rebuild my town. Yeah, of course. The It's easy to trust you guys. You guys are a real member of this community. Your heart's in this and uh you it was a simple thing to do. Well, I really appreciate it and we hope that you guys all want some t-shirts as well. The best of Aladena. Come check it out, guys. I'm so excited. We are here in Aladena. I'm with Dutch Merrick. And Dutch, you lost your home in the fire. First, tell me a little bit about you and your wife's business. So, my wife is a physician of Chinese medicine. Uh she has a business doing acupuncture, herbology, cupping, all of the Chinese modalities. and we have a colonic clinic. I worked in the film business for 30 years now. Okay. And I started as before I was in the business, I was a competitive shooter. Okay. I used to go to shooting competitions and that was my segue into the business as what they call a gun wrangler or an armorer. And so I would handle uh the firearms for a scene and block them as props. Choreographing fight scenes and things like that. We need to make sure the equipment runs and more importantly that the guns are used in a safe manner and that everybody feels that they're safe. Uh in the wake of the Alec Baldwin tragedy on the set of Rust, I put together a class a workshop. Oh, how smart. Yeah. So, we teach uh it has never been anything just like this uh before where I teach an 8-hour curriculum, very hands-on for film professionals. Wow. So, that they we raise the bar for gun safety in the film business. Wow. So, this is my uh my my pivot business as it were. Okay. Uh with live fire learning because I was a competitive shooter and I've been an armor so long. I teach people how to shoot and our client would be just anybody that wants to know more about guns. So, I have a particular target audience. I want to serve most the people that are least likely to be found on a shooting range. And there's a lot of people that just flat out afraid of guns because they haven't been exposed to them. So, I bring them around a range. We make it real simple, supportive. Now your wife and you are housed obviously someplace else. One point we were in a house of seven people all packed in so just to to for a place to stay but we figured it out and now we are working on the rebuilding process. We just just authorized the Army Corps of Engineers to come level what's left and they're going to take out all the toxins. Well, it's so great that you're you're doing okay. I I appreciate that you're staying in the community, you know, which isn't for everybody. We're not, you know, some people are, some people aren't. No, you know, no judgment as to what who should do what. So, so Dutch, thank you so much. Oh, such a pleasure. Thank you very much. Thanks for doing this show. So, you bet. You bet. I'm here with Freddy from Freddy's Antiques. We are part of the best of Altadena project. I grew up my whole life in Aladena. So, Aladena is just such a special special part of my life and I know it is for you too, Freddy. I want to first appre um tell you how much I appreciate you guys helping us. The stores, you know, with the t-shirts that have all our names on the back. There he is. And I wear it very proudly when people see it, you know, I said that's my store right there. Um by supporting and buying the t-shirts has helped us out and kept everybody busy. I still keep contact with customers just because they're gone and I don't have a store anymore. I still keep contacts and if they need anything from me, they can always call me. That's what really impresses me about you, Freddy, is just uh earlier when you and I were having coffee that you go to people to meet them halfway that someone lost a diamond in their ring and it was an old customer and you found the equipment you needed since you lost your equipment. You found the equipment you needed at a different store and still did the work for them. I mean, that's just the kind of neighbor you are. Customers have been calling me to do repairs. I still can do the repairs. If you know my store, you've been there, you have my number, it hasn't changed, um, I can do it for you. Just call me and I'll be there for you. Freddy's there for you and we're here for Freddy. Thanks, Freddy. Thank you, Norm Haley. Yes, as I live and breathe. Yes, it is. Here you I have my neighbor Norm Haley happens to have a Helms bakery truck. Tell me your memory about the Helms truck. Back in the 30s, 40s and 50s, most families could only afford one car and there was this huge business of home delivery and uh they brought uh diapers around, they brought groceries around, milk, uh eggs. When the Helms man would come around, uh, they would blow a whistle, right? And the whistle Oh man, that makes me salivate. Helms man was really, really smart. Yeah. He, uh, would always have a broken cookie or a broken donut. So I never First one's free, as they say. That's right. I I never I never went away empty-handed. That is so sweet. What neighborhood did you grow up in? I right over right over on Harding Avenue. We've recently been through the fires, Norm. incredibly and my house here on our street survived. But Norm is a uh he finds these autos. I mean, how many do you have, if I could ask? Uh that run or total? I've got 40. 40. 40. How many run? 20. 20. Wow. Now, now one question. It's red. Why is it red? It should be yellow with blue, right? Yellow with blue. Any of you Southern Californians know that the truck now the vintage of my truck wasn't this truck. It was the uh panel truck. Paddle Chevy, right? Yes. Same whistle though. Same sound. I I also have one of those trucks and all this stuff to put it together. One of those two. I I'm getting a little bit old to maybe put it together, but I'm going to try. But in in that case, they didn't have the whistle mounted to the truck. Okay. The guy carried in his pocket. Whoa. Ah. Oh my gosh. I love that sound. That sound. I mean, it really is a memory of for me, Cory Delmare, you right here in Altadita of Oh, you hear that whistle? You grab a quarter, grab a dime. For me, it was a jelly donut, right? For you was a broken, poor, pathetic half a cookie. But it was good. It was sad. It was good. No, it was good. It wasn't sad. It was all good. You know, it was a big deal. We'd all sit on the curb and and eat our uh donut or our cookie. It was it was it was a an event. This is called a sit and stand truck. All right. So, it has a seat that goes forward so the driver can actually drive it standing up. What? And it has a extremely low first gear. Wow. This gear is so low that they would leave it in first gear and it would creep along the curb while they walked up to deliver their goods and walk back to the truck. And the truck would hopefully be approaching the next house. No, with a couple of dogs and small children hopefully avoiding. And I don't know how many accidents there had to have been some. Now, let's look at this pedal down here. There's one pedal, right? This is the brake and that is in gear. Wow. There's a gas pedal over here, but it takes some getting used to because when you work the clutch, if you put it too far down, then you're putting on the brakes. Wow. That is so interesting in terms of that that they would stand there. I I mean, like I say, mine was the Chevy, my vintage, right? So, they weren't creeping down the street. A great war tiein is that tell me that Divco when when Helms came. So all Helm's trucks were rolling a million miles a day prior to World War II. By the way, I'm going to interrupt you just for a second. And and recently Paul Helms III just passed away. So So our condolences to the Helms family and and we love you guys and all you're doing to keep the Helm's legacy alive. But I just want to acknowledge his recent past. Right. And they have quite a place to visit at the old original factory in Culver City. Beautiful. Beautiful deco building. It's designed. Absolutely. They have a little Helms Museum there and they actually have just opened up a bakery. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, they're doing a bakery there. But but back to the story of Divco and Paul Helms. So World War II came along and no civilian vehicles were allowed to be manufactured. So by the end of the war, Paul Helms was really struggling to keep his fleet of trucks running. So he went to the DFCO company and he wanted to order some new trucks. And DFCco said, "You know, we hate this truck. We don't want to build any more of these trucks, but it so happens we were building airplanes for the war and we have a whole bunch of 40,000 aluminum left over." And so we will build them out of 40,000 aluminum. This is one of the 400 last trucks and and aged a year again. This is 1947. 47. So just after the war and and such an amazing story. The Helms again. Thank you, Helms family. Can we Can we hear the whistle one more time? You [Music] bet. Oh, you know what? That makes me need to look at this. It's a whole donut. We're giving Norm his first whole donut from Elmstr. Okay, you grab that one. He grabbed the one I wanted. Well, here you California. Talk to you soon. Thanks, Norm Hailing. This is the diet donut. He's assured me. [Music] [Applause] [Music] Wisa, I'm so excited. The Poison Berry Festival at Knottberry Farm. We get to eat. We get to do lots of stuff. What are you looking forward to? I'm looking forward to all the Boenberry themed desserts. Those are my absolute favorite. And there's some games for kids. This is going to be great. Let's get going. [Music] So, here I have the beef biria sliders with boenberry consmé. I can't wait to dig in, guys. Let's check it out. [Music] The only thing I need is a napkin. The rest perfect. So good. I'm so excited. We're at Knottberry Farm and I get to talk to Wolf Seymour, the director of food and beverage here at Knottberry Farm. We're here at the Poison Berry Festival. But tell me about food and beverage overall for the parade. In park, we've got a huge selection of food and beverage here. Everything from the simple burger, tenders and fries, pizza. Um, we've got the most amazing pasta bar here in the park there. Great barbecue. We try to make food as much fun as we can here in the park. And it it keeps people coming back over and over and over again. Right now it's Boenberry Festival. I got to tell you, we're parking and we're watching people walk in with hats on that look like Boenberries. So, this is like a thing. It's It's a big thing. Boenberry pies on their head. Boenberry p. It's just everybody loves it. I don't have enough boenberry on today. I got my hat here. Like I said, our food is fun here. And we started this was a farm at one time. They grew berries and rhubarb and stuff like that. And we've taken that boenberry and we've made it our part of the We eat. Yeah. It It's like the history and the food, they go together here. What is the the origins of the festival itself? It's because of the boenberry we became this um Miss Snots was cooking her fried chicken and making boenberry jams and boenberry pie and it was the most popular thing then and we thought this is amazing. We got something right here that we can celebrate as part of the park and our heritage and for the last 10 years we've been doing it. This is our 10th anniversary doing it. We love it. We mix it in beverages. Wait, what is this? This is a cucumber lemonade. Boy cucumber lemonade. That's delicious. Yeah. But yeah, so refreshing. We we have this this festival, we have over 80 food items in the park. Um everything from the simple what we started with was our boys and berry barbecue sauce. But it was simple. The the wings and the uh meatballs were like our first few items. They're still available cuz people go, "Oh my god, I have to have that. That was like the first thing I had with Boenberry on it." Yeah. For the festival, you buy a pass. Yeah. You get certain amount of tastings that you go to. Liza and I are going to go do those. Now, I know you can't have a favorite child. However, one of the items that I love the most is our lemon boenberry tart. I love it. The flavor of the two combined is unbelievable. Uh it's a tartness and the sweetness of the berry mix well together. Yeah. And and uh time it. It's from when to when weekends only, but we're here. We open up at 11:00. The park opens at 10:00. You can come in, relax, and then we go till 8:00 or 9:00 at night. And it's every year. Every year we do. We don't pick it this year, plan for next year. Uh, in terms of when we're through eating, where do we the gurnie that comes out of here? Is that where we call one for you? This started as a the the theme park part as a way to entertain people while they were waiting for their food. Exactly. So, this is full circle. See you more. Thank you so much. Thank you. appreciate you coming out. You got to check out the Boenberry Festival, but just knots food overall. Talk to you soon. Cheers. Cheers. [Music] We're going to go eat and have some [Applause] fun. I didn't know that I was kind of amongst mixed company here. So, these are the two coyotes that steal the pies from the factory. Got to look out for these two because we need it for the pie eating contest. You guys leave enough for the both of us. They're so cute. I think I'm going to stick around with them. Bye, guys. This is a boenberry ice cream dipped bunell. I think I got that right. I tried. So, I'm going to try the ice cream first. Loveberry ice cream as only knots can do it. And this is my first bunalo. Wow, that is so good. It's It's kind of a fancy shaped churro, is it? But kind of it's got it's it's incredible. I love this. All right, I am here underneath my favorite ride here at Knottenberry Farm, the Silver Bullet. And now I am trying the Boenberry barbecue pulled pork over the boenberry cornbread and with boenberry kleslaw on top. Let's check it out. Get a little bit of that cornbread. M. That's a good bite. Yep. That is so good. That is my favorite thing so far on the list. [Music] Now we have the deep fried French toast with a boenberry cream cheese filling. Fried to perfection. Not too much. The boenberry cream cheese is light but delicious. I'm going for [Music] more. Thank you. [Music] Okay, big payoff. Mango berry smoothie. Boenberry and mango. So good. So good. And then a lemon boenberry tart. Boom. Here we go. Oh wow. We were just talking about how some Oh my gosh. The roller coaster right here. This is so much fun. We're just talking about how some tarts like our tart. This is tart. I love this. So good. Really [Music] good. I don't know about you, but I am so full. That was what was your favorite thing? My favorite thing was the pulled pork with the boenberry cornbread. I like the bunwell, which I think I can pronounce now. Nailed it. There was activities. There's all sorts of things to do until May 18th. Special days. Come to Dotsberry Farm. You're going to love [Music] it. Oh, here we go. You said, right? So I'm here with my buddy buddy buddy buddy look everybody what cream cheese well with poisonberry ice cream and how that was hair I hope you enjoyed this episode of pampis's best of California I'm full how about you Liza I'm full but I could always eat more in California and keep the faith out the A we're wearing our best of Aladita t-shirts. See you next time. [Music] What's the best in your California city? Go to our website, bestofcal.tv, and tell us about it. We'll come cover you. [Music]